Social Practices & Translocal Resilience

Case studies on international migration between Thailand, Singapore, Germany and on internal migration within Thailand

This subproject's key focus is the analysis of migrants' translocal modes of living from an actor-based perspective. Hence, the connections migrants establish between and within different places through their everyday social practices will be examined in detail.

Since migration, as a multi-layered process, is mirrored in everyday social practices, this sub-project will focus on them and their effects. Migration often means keeping the connection to one's place of origin while living in another place. A multi-embedded mode of life like this entails a complex network of linkages between the respective different socio-spatial contexts. The production of such links through various forms of interaction between migrants and those left behind (in rural parts of Thailand) are to be analyzed. The interrelations of migrants' connections to their places of origin and the ways of dealing with effects of climate change in these sending areas will be studied in particular.

Aim: This sub-project seeks to understand the impacts of migration from rural Thailand on the resilience of migrants' households and villages of origin to risks related to environmental change. Modes of dealing with such changes might be influenced by transfers made through translocal linkages. Producing these links is an active process which is why migrants' everyday practices in and across their multiple locales will be dissected.

The guiding questions are: How is translocality produced? Which links are produced, staying in contact with family members, transmitting social and financial remittances for instance? Between whom and under which circumstances do these translocal links emerge? In what sense does translocality influence how people handle impacts of environmental change in rural areas?

Methods: We will 'follow the migrants': This approach implies a multi-sited research that is based on ethnographic methods in the case of this subproject. Selected villages in North and Northeast Thailand will serve as starting points. Different migration trajectories will then be followed in order to understand the effects of translocal social practices. The aim is to cover the main migration types as well as destination areas of migrants from rural Thailand (→ read more on our research area).

Several theoretical approaches prove to be suitable for such an examination. Besides the scientific debates on resilience and migration from a human geography perspective, Bourdieu's Theory of Practice adds an analytical approach based on social theory.

For more information on internal migration in Thailand

For more information on transnational migration from Thailand to Singapore and Germany

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Who we are

We are a BMBF supported research group seeking to decipher the relationships between migration, translocality, and social resilience to climate change in Thailand. Our working group is based at the Department of Geography at the University of Bonn, Germany. Get to know our team...